I ran my weetbix wash on Monday - through a borrowed duplast still with only a handful of marbles in the packing section. (I was aiming for pot-still mode)
Even after airing over night, the middle of the run still tastes like it's been filtered through a builders gumboot sock that's been worn for a week..
I had a pencil lead sized stream for most of the run (balancing a bit of cooling through the "reflux" coil so as not to overwhelm the product condenser) and collected the first 200ml in one bottle, and then 100ml/bottle after that until it hit 91 degrees and I ran out of bottles so just ran through to 93 degrees into a big jar instead.
My first collection was 72% all nasty fores, and the last bottle got down to 32%.
There was definitely too much input power for the product condenser, and tasting my way through the bottles it seems that the heads smeared for ages, and there was no clear 'heart'. My guess is that the mismatch between input power and condenser capacity and the resulting aggressive "reflux" is at fault here? Thinking that the reflux condenser was causing the smearing by knocking vapour back down that should have been allowed to come off in the order nature intended? Might have got away with it if the column had been packed, but a pot still with reflux is just wrong? Any thoughts?
This is a loaner still, and only temporary while I get my glass bubbler sorted, so I'm interested in learning what I can from the exercise rather than trying to 'fix' this piece of kit. Although I would consider building a power controller seeing as I can use that on my bubbler later..
I've put the results in a big bottle and will call it a stripping run for now - hopefully re-running at some stage down the track will get the plasticy sock taste out.
Tu.